Masuda Akari

"I still believe in miracles! I'm Masuda Akari."

- Akari's Stage Introduction Catchphrase

Akari Masuda is a member of AKB0048's 151st Generation and the co-captain of AKB0048's Team K.

Akari is also known as Akarin (あかりん). She is a cheerful and energetic girl who can be serious from times to times. She comes from the planet Aleenstar and grew up with the believe, music and entertainment would be evil and that AKB0048 would be a group of terrorists. After entering the auditions without wanting it, her view of AKB0048 and the world changed.

Appearance
Akari has long, brown hair and amber-coloured eyes. She usually wears her hair open with two little braids at the sides which end up in another small braid at the back of her head. She has got a pale skin. Similar to other 0048 members, she has got a heart-shaped light reflection on her eye. Her eyes are amber-coloured and she has got heart-shaped light reflections in her eyes too. As well, there’s a spiral-like light reflection. The reason of this is unknown.

Akari doesn’t care much about her appearance as long as she looks a bit nice. She has a bad fashion sense and isn’t very good in choosing fitting clothes. While her general style varies a lot, Akari's casual clothes tend to have red, her favourite colour, in them.

Personality
Akari is a cheerful, easy-going, positive girl. She can be polite and well-behaved, but casually doesn't do so. She likes to help others but also has a spot for friendly trolling or pranking them. Generally, she can be quite sarcastic and mischevious as well.

Akari strongly believes in certain values and trusts her friends from the bottom of her heart. She thinks highly of courage, trust, friendship and aiding others and tries to do so herself. Despite knowing that she had been wrong in the past as well, she doesn't refrain of correcting others. She speaks out what she is thinking and sometimes forgets others' feelings. Akari can be quite serious and determinant as well.

Skills
Akari's singing skills aren't as trained as her dancing skills. She prefers dancing as well but is working on her singing. She likes to train dancing. Having worked in a shop before, she has grown up with talking to stangers and is used to it.

She is also quite good in persuading people. Since Akari loves history a lot, she reads a lot of books about different historical topics and has got a vast knowledge. She isn't as good as in history in other subjects, mainly before work is preventing her from learning a lot.

Akari prefers micsabers to other weapons and mainly uses them. She has no problems with wielding two micsabers at the same time and usually does so. She knows how to use LAS and rifles but doesn't use them as much as micsabers, mainly because they're most useful while performing.

Being quite sporty and interessted in many sports, she has tried a few but since work prevents her of doing many sports, she isn't doing any sport often. She often trains long distance running in the morning and can be found joggging through the central city of Akibastar sometimes.

As a result of Orchestra, Akari has learned how to play the bass. She liked to learn doing this, espacilly since her favourite original member played bass as well, and practised a lot. However, due to the rather short period of time, she had to learn, her skills are still rather basic.

History
Growing up on Aleenstar, Akari was raised in belief that entertainment was poison to the human mind. Personally, she supported the DES as well due to the fact that her father, a former DES soldier, was seriously hurt in battle and now bound to a wheel chair. Living an easy life as daughter to a regular family, she often helped in her family's store when her father couldn't work.

One day, a girl, Tamada Mizuki, moved to Aleenstar from Kasumigastar. The new girl quickly befriended with Akari and her friends. Something, the girls did not know was that she was a secret 0048 fan. One day, she showed them an audio file of one of 0048's songs. Her friends did not understand that it was music and were curious what she had shown them. Since Akari wasn't present, she never heard the song. It took a while until Mizuki revealed her friends what the file had been but at that point, the majority of Akari's friends were convinced that it wasn't bad at all.

When the audition was announced, Mizuki proposed the idea of joining to the girls. A few of them agreed to try while Akari first refused. Having not heard the music, she still believed that it was dangerous. However, the group pressure forced her to send a tape as well. When the results returned to Mizuki, she decided not to tell Akari where they'd be going. Making up several lies, the group of friends went to the auditions. However, on the way to the Flying Get, the group was found by DES foces. Fortunatly, they were rescued by WOTA forces. However, this event also lead to Akari leaning of the secret behind the trip and demanded to return to Aleenstar. The WOTA offered to return her home after reaching the Flying Get since the audition had a set date, the other girls didn't want to miss. Akari agreed, but on the way to the Flying Get, one of the WOTA decided to indirectly show her a video of AKB0048, effectively changing her mind quickly. Said WOTA is still a fan of hers as well.

In her time in 0048, Akari has grown a lot. Her view of the world changed a lot and she has made new friends. She learned a lots of new things and met new people that shaped her into the young woman, she is today. She doesn't look down onto her past, knowing that her parents did not do anything wrong as they grew up in the same way, she did.

Team History
151st Generation → 151st Generation & Team 00 → 151st Generation & Team K
 * Joining the 151st Generation of Trainees (SC0123.05.15)
 * Promoted to Team 00 (Formation) (SC0123.06.17)
 * Transfer to Team K (Formation) (Halloween Shuffle) (SC0123.10.31)

Etymology
Masuda is written as.

can be translated as Increase and as field.

Akari is written as.

can be translated as glimmer or light.

Generally, Akari is often called Akarin (あかりん). Honoka calls her Rio (リオ).

Quotes

 * "I still belive in miracles! I'm Masuda Akari! " - Akari's Introduction Catchphrase
 * "I want to free the whole galaxy from the entertainment ban! " - Akari during her speech in the Senbatsu Sousenkyo SC0123

Other Artworks
For other pictures, please refer Akari's Category.

Trivia

 * Favourite Song in the New Era: Kibou no Chronicle
 * Favourite Word: Miracle (奇跡)
 * Audition Song: Kyou Made no Melody
 * Favorite Food: Spagetti Bolognese
 * Favorite Animal: Pigeons
 * Favorite Colour: Red
 * Hobbies: Music, Reading, Sport, Spending time with other members
 * Penlight Colour: Red
 * Her voice actor was choosen because she voiced Asuna in Sword Art Online and Renjoji Bell in Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live among others.
 * Akari's social media nickname is @MadaKisekiWoShinjite. The username is the romaji of her catchphrase.
 * Akari loves to ship members
 * Her original design was inspired by 9th Yuuko.
 * Akari tends to notice all conversaitions which are about her home planet Aleenstar. She is a bit paranoid about those.
 * In the future, if she doesn't stay in the entertainment business, she would like to become a politician.